Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance plans to slash 4,000 jobs from its payroll by 2021, according to a Nikkei Asia Review report.
The plan follows heavy losses from a series of natural disasters that have rocked Japan in recent years. The insurer’s workforce will decrease by nearly 20%, taking into account natural attrition as older employees retire.
After the planned reduction, Sompo Japan will be left with about 23,000 employees. To deal with the shortfall in staff, the insurer plans to automate more clerical processes and expects profit to improve by about ¥10 billion yen ($93.1 million).
The firm also plans to scale back hiring by 4% and will send more employees on secondments to other group companies – including nursing care and security operations under the Sompo Holdings umbrella. Nikkei reported that the company does not plan to offer employees a voluntary severance package.
Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance was established in 2014 in a merger between Sompo Japan Insurance and Nipponkoa Insurance. According to Nikkei, the company, which has the largest workforce among Japan’s major non-life insurers, is widely considered to be in need of streamlining.
